Personally, I’m opposed to it as well. MathML is one of those frontiers which has immense unexplored potential. Can you imagine writing e-mails to instructors with inline mathematics formulae, or including equations in an instant messaging chat? I can and have imagined exactly that for as long as I can remember. I tried once upon a time to bring MathML into Mozilla Composer with my Abacus project, but determined it was too hard and too hacky to be a true solution.

This is precisely why I’ve been working on my prototype XML editor, Verbosio. It’s supposed to be a complete rewrite of how we create and edit web pages. The idea is that a language like MathML is simply a Mozilla add-on to the editor. Unfortunately I’ve been buried with both full-time work and college to make any real progress on my Verbosio project on my own.

I’ve said for years that I didn’t want to attract a larger audience on an unproven principle. Maybe that’s the wrong decision in this open-source Mozilla community. While I still believe in the idea, I’ve become my own bottleneck. It’s far past time for me to swallow my pride and admit that.

What I need to continue development is some help – and I don’t care how junior that help is, as long as they’re capable of writing JavaScript and willing to learn. Two to five people who can work with me by e-mail and are patient can achieve far, far more than I can on my own. I can train other engineers in this technology. I can teach and explain what I’m trying to do and why at a deep level.

We’ve seen major improvements to browsers over the last five years: HTML 5 form controls, audio and video, faster JavaScript performance, etc. All of these areas are attractive. Editing web pages? Not so much – except to me. The ability to write efficiently is still as important as the ability to read efficiently.

So, if you’re a budding JavaScript developer who wants to get into something experimental with someone who won’t quit on the idea, please leave a comment. I should’ve asked you years ago.